Blog 2

    The issue from the EHE I found myself most interested in writing a stakeholder proposal for was the prevalence of plagiarism and cheating in higher education. In order to help me learn more about this topic, as well as to give me ideas for P2, I read the articles "Cheating in College" by Scott Jaschik and "Studies Shed Light on How Cheating Impedes Learning" by Sarah D. Sparks.
    Reading these articles made it clear that though many different efforts have been made by various institutions over the years, none have been successful in eradicating cheating entirely. Methods such as harsher punishments for those caught cheating or school honor codes have been shown to positively impact the number of reported cases of cheating and/or plagiarism, but the effectiveness of these attempts vary and some percentage of cheaters always stubbornly remain.

    It was with these facts in mind that I decided what my proposal would be. According to the articles from our book, all of the methods tried have been either neutral (honor codes) or punitive (expulsion, automatic zero on assignment, etc.) in nature. This is to say all attempts made thus far have relied on the stick, not the carrot. My proposal would involve a relatively minor system of strictly classroom based rewards such as small extra credit opportunities as well as more overarching university wide rewards such as being given small priority in internship programs, signing up for courses, etc. if the student has a spotless record of cheating or plagiarism. This would be in addition to (not instead of) the more typical honor code and punitive measures against cheating, because while these methods have not been shown to solve the problem outright, they would still be effective. On top of this, I would also propose a more concentrated effort by CSU faculty to uncover instances of cheating or plagiarism. With both the likelihood of being caught and the incentive to not cheat so much greater I believe it would be possible to eradicate cheating in college entirely, with the exception of a few outlier cases. This would not happen overnight, indeed it could take years before the general attitude of the student body shifts toward greater academic integrity, however I believe combining the carrot and stick in this way would be greatly beneficial in the long run.
     I would target this proposal to the  CSU TILT center because of their involvement in the University's policy regarding cheating and plagiarism. This would be far more beneficial than writing to a professor or other faculty member at CSU, as my proposal would be most effective if implemented across the entire University, rather than a single classroom. Due to their unique position and influence, the TILT center would be far more capable of doing this than a single or even multiple professors. Considering that dealing with college students cheating and plagiarizing is already such a large part of the work they do there, I believe that I would have no issues convincing them of the problem's exigency.